In
business, just like in real life, companies can be a victim of
expectations. Fortunately for chipmaker Intel it handily
beat the estimates of Wall Street's top researchers, reporting
its best
quarter ever. On Tuesday night after the closing bell Intel
reported a Q2 2010 revenue of $10.8B USD, handily topping the $10.25B
USD predicted by analysts.

Chipmaker AMD, the David to Intel's
Goliath, had some good news of its own on Thursday. The company
posted a net loss for Q2 2010 of only $43M USD, $110M USD less than
the loss widely predicted by Wall Street. AMD reported revenue of $1.65B USD, where analysts had predicted it to pull in only
$1.54B USD. It also posted a promising Non-GAAP earnings were
$83M USD.

AMD has benefited from its success
in the GPU segment, and, like Intel, by a strong upgrade cycle
demand for CPUs. AMD credits stronger demand for notebook CPUs
and GPUs as a major source of its turnaround. With its latest
results, AMD inches closer to finally crawling out of the money pit
it has long
been languishing in. In fact, if the current results are
any indication, AMD may return to profitability within a quarter or
two.

Ultimately, AMD and Intel are being buoyed up
by a strong upgrade push both in the desktop and notebook sector.
A major part of this push is thanks
to Windows 7, Microsoft's latest consumer operating system that
is earning unanimous praise from reviewers and customers
alike.

While some worry about the upgrade craze dying down, it
seems likely to continue strong for some time while so many customers
still have Windows XP. Additionally, businesses will likely
slowly jump onboard the upgrade train as they look to transition to
Windows 7. If Microsoft can replicate Windows 7's success with
Windows 8, the outlook for both Intel and AMD may continue to be just
as rosy.

"I mean, if you wanna break down someone's door, why don't you start with AT&T, for God sakes? They make your amazing phone unusable as a phone!" -- Jon Stewart on Apple and the iPhone